During and immediately after the war, along with the strengthening of militarization, so-called “Children born of war”, were born all around the world, i.e., children who are less likely to be born if there was no war in a certain region, and where their fathers were sent on official or military duty. In the context of Bosnia and Herzegovina, this category includes children whose fathers were: a) soldiers-members of the opposing army, i.e., members of other ethno-national groups in relation to the group to which the mother belonged (parents belonging to previously warring, so-called enemy parties); b) members of the stationary / peacekeeping forces (UNPROFOR, IFOR, SFOR, etc.); or c) employees of foreign humanitarian missions while mothers were local women.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, we often talk about the consequences of the war, but very rarely about one of the most vulnerable categories – “children born of war”, who suffered violations of children’s rights. The results of previous research, UN reports and journalistic reports suggest that “children born of war”, often unrecognized and rejected by fathers, and left in the care of mothers and / or the community in which they were born, grow up deprived of many children’s rights and with possible problems of identity, stigma, discrimination, marginalization and / or isolation.
The Forgotten Children of War Association was founded in 2015 by several enthusiasts – human rights activists and “children born of war” from Bosnia and Herzegovina, who remained in the shadow of war and post-war period, invisible and unrecognized as a vulnerable category of children in the country of origin of their mothers and / or the country of origin of their biological fathers.
The Forgotten Children of War Association is the first and currently the only association in the world whose founders and members are children born of war, and approaches the topic of children born of war in a completely different way. The first association that works on social and legal visibility, the first that unites its members who belong to the above mentioned categories.
